If you're looking for ideas on how to increase your brand awareness on social media, there are a number of ways you can go wrong. Instead of focusing on those, we'll focus on helping you do it the right way! Below we've outlined some suggestions to get you started. You can learn more about the power of social media in retail by reading David Rich's latest post, or you can catch his talk at the 5th Annual Food Industry Summit.

Mention exciting promotions using social media - particularly during tough economic times, consumers are more focused than ever on finding a bargain. Social media takes coupon clipping to all new levels! If you've got a promotion coming up in store or online, post it on Facebook or Twitter. You can even create exclusive coupon codes for individuals that follow you or like your business page. This will keep existing customers in the loop and help draw in all new ones.

Ultimately, social media is about relevance and respect. Brands want it as well and social media allows them to grab their fair share in a voice that speaks to their customers the way they want to be heard.

That is power.

That is power for the generic cereal that gets relegated to the bottom shelf. That is power to traditionally seasonal products like @BrucesYams that people may forget about except during Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. That is power for almost any other brand that struggles to get noticed with one facing in a crowded category.

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 4, 2011 David Rich, President & CEO of ICC/Decision Services, will speak at the fifth annual Food Industry Summit next week. This year’s summit theme is “Sales and Profit Growth through Direct Marketing, Social Media, and E-Commerce.” David will address how social media is more than a department or even strategy, but a way in which customers will connect and grow with brands and retailers.

If you hire a mystery shopping service that simply decides to point out what went wrong with their experience in your retail store, how far is that really going to get you? As a business owner or manager you may find yourself feeling as though nothing is going right, but you've got no idea how to move forward from there. You need to ensure that the assessment will include actionable quality metrics that can help you make positive changes in the following areas:

What would have created greater sales potential - a mystery shopper can tell you what might have increased their desire to buy your products or services. That could mean pushing a different product with an upsell, for example.

Apple has been creating a lot of buzz this past week, with the media reporting that staff members had been asked to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement before a top secret meeting was set to take place. Naturally, the implication is that there's something hugely exciting in the works and it's kept individuals busy with speculation. We're not going to focus upon what Apple has brewing, because we're onto their other scheme - this amazing PR move!

With all the hype, it's clear that this 'top secret' meeting was never kept under wraps, and that may all have been for the sake of publicity. There are few businesses out there that can generate so much interest about an internal administrative process like an NDA signing. However, Apple knows their every move is watched and it's probable that they decided to take advantage of it! This is a unique form of marketing that's brilliant as it avoids direct sales, but still accomplishes a number of goals:

The television show 'Undercover Boss' sheds new light on the mystery shopping industry for those that have never contemplated the benefits of using this type of service. This show takes high ranking executives from major American companies and follows them as they step out of their comfortable offices and get their hands dirty. These executives work alongside entry level employees to get a better feel for what makes their companies tick. The show is entertaining for those that enjoy seeing some of the country's wealthy business people demonstrate a frequent inability to succeed while working in labor-intensive positions. But it offers much more too as it provides a unique look at how mystery shopping works and the benefits it provides.

With literally hundreds of providers eager to help you implement a mystery shopping program, knowing where to begin and what to look for can feel like a mystery in itself. Fortunately, finding the provider that’s right for your and your business comes down to answering five essential questions.

1. What’s Their Track Record?

The increasing recognition that mystery shopping programs can be used as an indispensable tool for increasing revenue and improving service has recently generated a proliferation of fly-by-night providers. And, while many of these providers assuredly offer quality services, researching the history of your potential mystery shopping provider is vital.
To get a read on any potential provider’s track record, here’s what you should consider asking:
Where has the provider been doing business, and for how long? Look for a provider with proof of a six month track record, minimum (obviously, the longer the better!).
Can you contact satisfied customers for a recommendation? In the customer service world where the “customer is king,” be suspicious of any provider who can’t offer such a list.
What qualitative and quantitative data gathering and analysis measures does the provider use? If they can’t clearly outline such measures in the abstract, can they really do it with your actual data?
What they will offer you and how much it will cost? More importantly, how do their rates and services compare with at least one other provider?

One of the Most Frequently Asked Questions that I hear about setting up a mystery shopping program deals with frequency of shops. Should we choose once a day, once a week, once a month, or once a quarter? My answer is always the same: it depends on your program goals and your budget. Let's face it- all retailers want to meet or even exceed their goals, but not all have the budget to support daily or even weekly programs. So while my standard answer to the Most Frequently Asked Question may sound overly broad, it actually based on what I like to call the principle of Maximization vs. Optimization.

Maximization vs. Optimization is based on a very sound mystery shopping formula:

When budgets are limited, it is generally better to shop fewer stores on a more frequent basis than all stores less frequently. You may, for example, decide it is more important to shop your top 30 best-performing stores. Or you may want to establish different frequencies, or rotate your stores and districts. There are an infinite variety of ways to create the program that works best for you, but the bottom line is to remember that there are enough variations possible to allow you to get the most out of your program without sacrificing the crucial data you need to meet your program goals. When it comes down to whether you should conduct your program quarterly, monthly, weekly or daily, there are other factors to consider:

Will Provide a Customer Service Benchmarking and Competitive Intelligence Program for Online Retailers

New York, NY (PRWEB) January 10, 2011 -- ICC/Decision Services is proud to announce a new partnership with STELLAService, the authority for measuring and benchmarking online customer service performance. David Rich, President & CEO of ICC/Decision Services, explains: "STELLAService is the most trusted provider of customer service evaluation programs for Internet retailers. The opportunity to team up with STELLAService to deploy the E-Shops business solution, in conjunction with the brick and mortar analysis we already provide to some of the world's most recognized brands, will allow us to offer a genuine 360 degree view of the customer experience to our current and future client base."

Jordy Leiser, CEO and Co-Founder of STELLAService, agrees. "This partnership offers online retailers unique and compelling insight into their online customer service performance while simultaneously benchmarking that performance against their peers. In today's marketplace, the competitive advantage lies with those who continuously evaluate and obsess over the online customer experience. From website features to shipping, delivery, and returns metrics to customer support capabilities and performance, the leaders in e-commerce closely monitor their service proposition and how it stacks up to the competition. Working with ICC/Decision Services to combine our comprehensive approach with its time-tested process of measuring and reporting on customer experience data will enable retailers to gain crucial insight into the quality and consistency of their online service."

By: Joseph Tarnowski, Progressive Grocer
But just as social media can spread a negative message like wildfire, it can do the same for positive messages, too, and the natural and organic foods retailer leveraged this fact to get back into consumers’ good graces, by posting a note on its Facebook page that explained its position, and then by actually thanking those who provided feedback, and by reassuring consumers that they are priority No. 1.

By: Joseph Tarnowski, Progressive Grocer
But just as social media can spread a negative message like wildfire, it can do the same for positive messages, too, and the natural and organic foods retailer leveraged this fact to get back into consumers’ good graces, by posting a note on its Facebook page that explained its position, and then by actually thanking those who provided feedback, and by reassuring consumers that they are priority No. 1.

In Loyalty Myths, the authors have assembled 53 of the most common beliefs about customer loyalty – all of them wrong or misconceived! Each of the beliefs in this book is debunked with real-world examples. While other books speak in platitudes; this book is the only one to validate each proposition with real data.

Granted unprecedented access to customer records from a variety of multi-national corporations. Through these records, Ipsos Loyalty was able to precisely track the impact of this customer-centric construct on actual purchasing behavior. The authors’ findings and conclusions will stun business leaders around the world. The lessons learned from these provide a true guide for the proper use of customer loyalty.

The Customer Delight Principle shows how customer delight -- not mere satisfaction -- drives repeat purchasing and customer loyalty. The book details how your company can build a customer delight-oriented organization and reveals many of the roadblocks that you are likely to encounter. How to monitor customer delight results, including measurement and validation against revenue, is covered, as is formulating payback curves for a customer delight investment, allocating resources for continued customer delight improvements, and the continued benchmarking of results.

Statistics show that customer satisfaction alone is not enough. Over 60% of customers lost by companies have reported that they were at least "satisfied," in their experience with the company.

In June 2006, a man named Vincent Ferrari had a shockingly combative conversation with an AOL sales rep; he recorded it and posted it on YouTube. More than 62,827 viewings later, AOL's reputation was irretrievably damaged. In the digital age, disgruntled customers are now in the driver's seat, argues Blackshaw in this thoughtful and engaging book. With the advent of Consumerist.com and other venues where customers can blow off steam about bad service or deficient products, consumer generated media is a force to be reckoned with. Since consumers trust other consumers above companies or brands, a company's success depends on its credibility and its ability to gain the trust and support of Web-savvy, outspoken and influential customers.

Through remarkable stories of mass consumer advocacy and the power of bloggers and ordinary Joes with an Internet connection and a bone to pick, Blackshaw advises executives on how to build credibility into their businesses through blogs, Web sites and video postings. Informative, energetic and entertaining, this is a marvelous argument for corporate responsibility and accountability, interesting to laypeople and instructive for executives. (July)